When I use Bambu Studio and I try to use the cut tool or the manual support tool- the UI for the tool IS ALWAYS OVER THE MODEL I’m trying to edit!
Is there a way to undock the tools and move it somewhere? I’m constantly fighting with the UI hanging over the model so I can’t see what I’m working on.
Those tool options panel should appear in the left column, where standard options are. When tool is closed it should vanish too.
I feel your pain.
The short answer is: you can’t do what you want. There’s no hidden toggle, no JSON hack, no plugin, and no amount of wishful thinking that will make Bambu Studio behave like modern software. They locked the UI down, and you’re running head-first into those limits.
Two things seem to be working against you:
Those two conditions turn Bambu Studio into a wall of oversized menus. That’s not your fault. That’s what happens when a company decides that UI flexibility isn’t a priority and forces everyone into the same rigid layout.
If you’re on a 13" laptop with common 1920x1080 resolution, the math is unforgiving. Bigger scaling = giant menus. Smaller scaling = squinting at ant-sized text. Bambu gives you no middle ground.
This is the only real lever you can pull from outside the software.
Right-click the Bambu Studio icon in your taskbar → Properties
This won’t magically fix the UI, but it may shrink the menus enough to make the workspace usable.
If your firmware is past 1.8 on the P1 or X1, skip this section. Bambu Labs deliberately shut off the path that allowed Orca to control their printers. If you didn’t update, you still have options. If you did, you’re locked into the walled garden.
Before the lockout, Orca offered two quality-of-life features that Bambu chose not to bring forward into their own fork, or at least from versions prior to BS 1.9.
These don’t solve the oversized-menu problem entirely, but they give you back precious screen real estate and make small displays far more tolerable.
And yes, the irony is obvious: the community-built fork had the better UI, and Bambu Studio never bothered to reintroduce those improvements even after borrowing from Orca’s codebase years ago.
You’re not doing anything wrong. You hit a limitation Bambu built into the software. Until they decide to let users detach panels, resize toolbars, or customize their workspace like every serious visual (CAD, Graphics etc) tool on Earth, you’re stuck with workarounds instead of solutions.
Once you collapse the side bar- the tools are still over the model. I’m not following…
To be clear- I want to use the cut tool and see my model and surface at the same time. I can’t use the tool settings with it blocking the view of the model.
Thanks I’m going to try some of these ideas. I really wish the menu would just pop out to the side (even if it’s not move-able). Geez Bambu… I love ya but really?
You have to move the plate to the left before selecting the tool.
I feel your pain. I’m frustrated having to work zoomed into a tiny L shaped area that is available around the block of text/menu that sits itself in the middle of my screen.
I like my bambu printers but having come from Prusa and other slicing a couple of months ago I’m extremely disappointed that Bambu has forced me into this slicer. All of the work seems to be on increasing its ties to Makerworld… not making it a more effective tool that I would choose to use freely.
I’m worried Bambu are nearing the point where they think they can start squeezing instead of innovating to increase revenues (like Uber, Netflix, Amazon etc once enough market share is owned). Their C level being experienced at that with other business must be itching to jump on the bandwagon of paywalling and microtransactions. All of the walled garden changes shout this type of interest.
I was about to make the same topic before seeing this one. It wasn’t clear to me what you meant by moving the plate to the left since there’s no such obvious option. I was able to do this by adding a plate, not sure if that’s what you meant.
You simply grab the plate with the center button of the mouse and move it to the left.
Well… based on what I’ve seen I think the terms of service don’t let me respond as I’d like.
Guess I earned my screen name there.
Thanks, that’s actually a huge help.
